About one-fifth of Boston’s registered voters chose eight finalists on Tuesday to compete for four at-large city council seats in November. The current Council president, Ruthzee Louijeune, was once again the leading vote-getter in the citywide field, followed by fellow incumbents Julia Mejia and Erin Murphy respectively.
Henry Santana, a first-term councillor at-large with close ties to Mayor Michelle Wu finished fourth with Frank Baker, a former district councillor from Dorchester, some 3,700 votes behind him.
According to unofficial results posted by the City of Boston Election department on Tuesday night, Louijeune notched 45,500 votes citywide— roughly 19% of the total cast— showing particular strength in her traditional bases in Dorchester, Mattapan, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, and Roslindale, where she immediately lives. The 39-year-old Haitian American attorney also topped the ticket in the last round of citywide balloting to win re-election in 2023.
Louijeune was a featured speaker last night at Adams Park, where she introduced Mayor Wu at her victory rave. Although sometimes at odds with Wu on specific issues, Louijeune was a strong and early endorser of the incumbent.
“We know that our mayor cannot do it alone. We work together and that doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything,” she said in her remarks. “There is no one that I would like to be steering the ship more than our mayor, Michelle Wu.”
Mejia, a 55-year-old Dorchester woman immediately seeking her third term in office, finished second overall on Tuesday night with 42,245 votes, or roughly 17%. Murphy, 55, of Dorchester, who is also a three-term incumbent on the council, recorded 38,981, or 16%.
Trailing her was Santana, a Roxbury resident who is running for re-election for the first time and was widely seen as most vulnerable among the incumbents. His fourth place finish, with 30,670 votes, or about 12.6%, makes him the most likely target for those who finished in the second tier.
The 57-year-old Baker, who finished fifth with 26,240 votes, or about 11%, is at the leading of that list. He has shown strength in fundraising this year, gathering more money to fuel his campaign than any other council at-large rival other than ticket-topper Louijeune.
And he has drawn support from a diverse set of leaders, including Dorchester state Reps. Dan Hunt and Brandy Fluker-Reid and state Sen. Lydia Edwards. Baker was also boosted by endorsements from former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and former mayoral candidate and council colleague Annisa Essaibi George.
Baker’s return to the council via a citywide seat would add another contrarian voice to a council that has been, at times, squarely at odds with Wu or her chief deputies. He was a frequent critic of the mayor during his time as a district councillor while she was in office.
At a post-election rave held at The Nightly in Savin Hill, Baker told a small gathering of supporters that he was “very happy about our performance today. I feel very confident in where we are right immediately,” he said. “We’re taking on incumbents. We’re taking on, sort of, an entrenched power.”
The other three candidates who finished with enough votes to appear on the November ballot include Alexandra Valdez, who won 18,930 votes, or 8%; Marvin Mathelier, with 13,826 votes, or 5.6%; and Will Onuoha in the final slot, with 11,216 votes, roughly 4.6%.
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